Wedding Shadowbox

I saw something like this somewhere and it inspired me to make this. It's a shadowbox filled with stuff from my wedding that I wanted to display, but keep safe. This was pretty easy and fun to make and I love looking at it hanging in our hallway.

 Materials:
12"x12" Shadowbox (about 1" thick)
Scrapbook paper for the background
Tape
Pins
Accessories you want to display





My shadow box included my veil, garter, hair comb, my husband's sheriff badge (we got married on a ranch), our program and one of the bookmarks that we gave as favors. The hardest part of making this was figuring out how to lay it all out so that everything could be seen, but look nice all together. As a rule thumb, the larger objects should go in the background and the smaller objects on top. Layering the items adds interest, just don't block anything important. And you should definitely try to use a contrasting background color paper. If all your items are light, use a dark background and if they're all dark, use a light background.


After playing around with it for about 20 minutes, I settled on this.

First, I laid the program down in the background and taped it to the background paper. Then, I taped down the comb of my veil so that the comb was under the fabric. I knew the book mark would cover this so I wasn't worried about about the tape showing. Then I attached my garter and the comb. These were trickier because I didn't want any tape or anything showing. I used sewing pins and poked them through the garter and comb and into the cardboard backing. If you get a shadowbox with a fabric background, it would be easier to attach. My shadowbox was pretty cheap, so it only had cardboard in the back. It was a little more difficult to get the pins to go through, but not impossible. I put the pins through the inside of the garter and folded it down so they won't show.

 The sheriff badge already had a pin on the back, so I just stuck that through. For the bookmark, I knew it would be pressed against the glass by my veil, but just to keep it from shifting after I close it up, I added folded over tape to the back of it.

Lastly, I decided that the top of the box looked a little bare, so I cut out a little calendar from a piece of scrapbook paper and circled our wedding date.

Then all I had to do was carefully put the frame around it and hang it without letting anything move. It took a couple tries to close it without letting anything move, but I think it's worth it! Just don't hang it in direct sunlight wear it will fade your precious items.

The Nikon D7000 is the camera I use for all my blog photos.

Ticket Shadow Box

One of my latest projects was a shadow box ticket holder. I don’t know how many people out there collect their movie/concert/event tickets like I do, but I’ve been saving mine since I was a teenager. I was sorting through them recently and I found the ticket from the movie my now husband took me to on our first date! I have tickets from every concert we’ve been to together, Disneyland tickets, conventions, and red carpet events. I didn’t know what to do with them until I saw this shadow box idea. It has a slot in the top so you can drop in the tickets throughout the years J

I got this plain shadow box from Joann’s, the cheapest, but large enough one they had. It is 12”x12”x2”. Then I cut a slot in the top. This was the hardest part. What I ended up doing (after a couple failed attempts) was drilling 1/4” holes on either side of where I wanted the slot. Then I used a jigsaw to cut between the holes. There was also a little insert that held the glass in that I had to cut through too. Because all this cutting left the edge raw (and the cheap frame was kind of ugly) I sanded the raw edges a bit and spray painted it glossy black.

While it dried I made the background for the box. I just put a nice piece of scrapbook paper in the back and since it was 12”x12” it was a perfect fit. Then I used my Cricut with the “Sure Cuts A Lot” software to cut out the ticket I designed. You can dowload the pdf of the ticket here. If you don’t have a Cricut, you can print one and cut it by hand or do anything you like in the background. Maybe stick some of your favorite tickets there or just get some fun scrapbook paper and leave it at that.

By the time I finished my background, the frame was done drying. Because I already had a bunch of tickets and I knew I wanted my favorite tickets in the front, I arranged them before I put the back on the frame. Now it’s hanging on my wall and is perfect for adding tickets to.